


The Shorter the Better

by fellasisitgay91219



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: And They All Become Friends, Everyone Is Gay, First Kisses, Fluff, Gardening, Getting Together, M/M, Natasha and Lucy Never Died, Watford, no angst whatsoever, not magical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:35:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27626875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fellasisitgay91219/pseuds/fellasisitgay91219
Summary: Simon and Baz compete over who can wear shorter shortscw: brief mention of eating disorders and panic attacks
Relationships: Dev/Niall (Simon Snow), Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Kudos: 50





	The Shorter the Better

**Author's Note:**

> i know nothing about gardening lmao
> 
> also this turned more into a friendship story then an idiots in love story and i’m kinda here for it!

**simon**

baz was wearing shorts.

they weren’t ridiculously short, but they showed off baz’s muscular, graceful legs and hinted at his pristine thighs. they were definitely too tight. they weren’t unflattering, not by a long shot, but their tightness made simon seethe. he wasn’t exactly sure why. maybe because they’d encourage people to check out baz’s arse? not that simon was currently checking out baz’s arse. he was just fuming the tightness of his shorts.

simon supposed this wasn’t the first time he had seen baz in shorts. when he played football he wore shorts, but those were longer and less tight. occasionally baz would wear swim shorts and a shirt when his friends went to the nearby lake for a weekend. still, these shorts were different. they made simon want to push baz against the wall and do… something.

scream at him maybe.

“why do you think baz is wearing shorts?” he asked penny, pushing their wheelbarrow down the hill. it was the start of their eighth year, which meant the start of their eighth year project. their entire class had to create a garden together. it was supposed to be about teamwork and building something that would last and beautifying the campus but simon suspected it was to keep them busy on the weekends. before headmaster davy mage had taken over the school, eighth year had a reputation for hookup culture. now it was filled with hard labor, gardening and carpentry.

simon didn’t mind really. agatha had broken up with him on the first day of school because she had realized she was aroace. they were friends now, which was much better then before.

plus he thought gardening was cool. it was about working with nature, instead of destroying it. creating something beautiful out of nothing. they also got to use minor saws, which was pretty righteous.

the only problem was baz. and his ridiculous shorts.

penny was carrying a bag of fertilizer and kept having to stop to readjust it in her arms. simon didn’t mind that either, it was a beautiful day.

“wait, what about baz’s shorts?” she asked, gesturing her head for them to move forwards again. their class presidents (penny and baz) had chosen a spot near the wavering woods. that meant a substantial walk from the school and back every time they wanted to bring supplies over.

he was going to be so fit by the end of the year.

“they’re some sort of plot.” simon told her, “i just know it.”

penny snorted. “you think everything is a plot.”

“because it is!”

baz, simon’s roommate, hated his guts.

he wasn’t sure if it was because he was a scholarship kid (classist twat) or if it was because simon had tantrums from first to third year. (sometimes he still had them, but penny called those panic attacks. and he tried to hide them from baz) whatever the case was, baz had been actively plotting to get him kicked out of school since their first year.

his most successful plots to date were: putting a rabid cat in his wardrobe and blaming it on simon, leaving him a note in agatha’s handwriting telling him to be outside the gates after curfew and asking him to explain the plots of PG13 movies while secretly recording him. the first one resulted in them both getting rabies shots, the second almost gave him pneumonia and the third didn’t even work. (baz apparently wanted simon to say something racy)

still, baz wanted him gone. he was willing to put in the work to do so. his shorts were most definitely this years plot.

“maybe he just didn’t want to be hot while he worked outside.” penny offered.

simon made a face. baz was always cold. his mother would say that it was because he had no meat on his bones. his mother would probably get mad at baz for not eating at every meal. simon even wanted to get mad at baz for not eating enough.

“no. i think he just wants to piss me off so much that i yell at him and get in trouble.”

penny snorted and then moved onto other topics. she had met someone new this summer, a bloke named shepherd. he was ridiculously weird and liked to do risky things. “a lot like you, actually.” she said with a laugh.

simon mumbled something about not choosing danger, that it came with living with baz.

then, they were at the site.

it was a scraggly piece of land. penny had told him that it was the site of a public restroom up until recently. simon didn’t know why anyone would put a restroom out here. it was a prime make out spot, though. maybe people made out until their throats were dry, drank a lot of water and needed to pee. maybe headmaster mage had torn it down to prevent that.

he had never made out with someone in the wavering woods. he had been dating agatha for almost his entire time at watford, and they never really made out. he understood why now, but during their relationship it was a big mystery.

kissing agatha had been nice. nothing like what penny described kissing as or what he saw on his moms soaps. he was glad he wasn’t dating agatha anymore. maybe he could find someone to kiss in the wavering woods this year.

“okay listen up folks!” penny said, dropping her bag into simon’s wheelbarrow. she had a really commanding voice and people did everything she said. that was why she was class president. that and her perfect grades. “we’re just laying the foundation for the garden today! which means a looot of weeding.” everyone groaned. “baz and i predicted this indifference to weeding, so when you’ve been weeding for an hour, you can take a break and paint a couple flower pots.” there were some appreciative murmurs. “we’ll break y’all up into four groups that can stagger breaks. it’s going to be a lot of hard work today, but i promise you, it’ll be worth it!”

simon beamed at his best friend and clapped alongside everyone else. baz and penny had spent hours planning the garden over facetime that summer. simon knew because he would often text her ‘i’m bored’ and she’d respond, ‘wanna join the facetime between baz and i?’

penny travelled to america every summer and agatha was too busy competing. even baz seemed went to the beach with his best friends or visited his mother in paris for a couple of weeks. simon was just stuck at home while his mother took odd jobs to make ends meet.

this summer he had started writing to fill his time. he wrote a chosen one story, except he hated chosen one stories, so it was about an anti chosen one. his main character was a mess and a half. he always managed to kill the monster or defeat the bad guy though.

unlike simon. he was still stuck with his villain (baz)

he had written baz into the story originally, but he spent way too long describing him so he decided to cut his loses and create a brand new villain. he called it the humdrum, the fancy word penny liked to use to describe his boring life. “maybe you should get a job, to escape the humdrum of your life,” she said, or, “i’m sorry you are dealing with the humdrum of repetitious days, but i have to hang up now.”

boredom was his villain during the summer. now baz’s shorts were filling that role.

“rhys and trixie, can you set up the rope around the plot of land?” baz was currently saying, but all simon could hear was, “my shorts are too tight and too short and i am so vain.”

“snow bring that wheelbarrow over here.” baz commanded.

simon heard, “simon, who i refuse to call anything but his ridiculous middle name because i think it’s dumb, come closer to my shorts so you can see how much worse they are!”

“simon?” penny asked, nudging him.

he sighed and wheeled over to baz.

he was right, the shorts were worse close up. they contrasted perfectly with baz’s dark green button up and they made his legs look ridiculously long.

really, his whole ensemble was terrible. his hair was pulled up in a bun and he was wearing dirty sneakers and tallish socks.

actually, simon quite liked the bun. maybe if baz pulled out a couple strands to give him a sexy professor look.

oh god, did he really just say the word sexy and baz in the same sentence? what was the world becoming?!

“snow?” baz asked, snapping his fingers in front of his face. “snow are you listening to me?”

simon startled. “uhh.”

baz rolled his eyes and pointed to a pile of fertilizer bags and other gardening tools. “take your stuff over there and then get to work.”

simon stuck his tongue out but complied. he couldn’t stop thinking about those shorts.

later, when they were exhausted and trudging up the stairs to get to their bedroom, he decided to bring them up. “baz…”

baz looked over at him with half open eyes. “what, snow?”

they were only on the second floor landing, but he wanted to give up and collapse onto the ground. “what are you playing at with those shorts?”

baz snorted and leaned against the banister. “what the fuck does that mean?”

simon tried to clench his fists but his palms were still red from pulling out weeds. “i mean… what are you plotting?”

baz rolled his eyes and started to climb again. “not everything is a plot, imbecile. you’re just jealous because you can’t rock shorts as well as i can.”

simon watched him climb and narrowed his eyes.

please, he definitely could pull of shorts like baz’s. actually. he could pull off shorter shorts.

**baz**

snow was wearing shorts.

ridiculously short shorts. they were halfway up his thighs and tight against his arse. they were grey, almost the color of baz’s eyes. they looked splendid with snow’s crisp white tee. the whole outfit was wildly impractical for gardening. baz thought he’d be doing snow a favor by ripping his clothes off.

no, no, those were fantasies for another time. right now he needed to concentrate on keeping the horny teens away from the wavering woods and getting the others plowing.

really it had been a dumb idea to put their garden next to the woods. neither baz nor bunce had realized that till their first day. no matter how many chaperones there were, someone managed to sneak away to make out behind a tree.

you’d think the two smartest people at their school could have predicated that, but you’d be wrong.

it hadn’t even occurred to baz that summer. all he had been thinking about was optimal beautification. it wasn’t that he didn’t know it was a prime make out spot, he spent enough time with dev and niall to never want to hear about it again, but he hadn’t put the two together. he had assumed his peers would be too busy working to think about kissing.

he had been wrong.

he wasn’t sure why bunce had failed to think of it. maybe it was because she always dated boys from other schools (other countries even) and wasn’t aware of it.

except… she was best friends with snow. snow must have gone there a couple of times with his ex. if he withheld information about the woods, wouldn't that break their no secrets pact? (he had learned about that this summer, when bunce realized he was in love with her best friend. she had promised not to stay anything, after all it was his secret, not hers. he guessed they were friends now. she was half decent, he supposed.)

no, snow definitely would have told her about his time there.

unless he hadn’t ever gone there with wellbelove.

baz wasn't really sure why they had broken up for good. they had been breaking up and getting back together for years. what had changed?

he considered asking bunce about it, but she would just tease him about his crush and just because he was pale, didn’t mean he couldn’t blush.

“oi, get off of each other!” he yelled to kerris and trixie, who were kissing near the wheel barrows. “if you aren’t plowing, you should be taking the weeds up to the school to be burned!” he yelled.

kerris flicked him off and kept kissing her girlfriend.

he sighed, there was only so much one could do.

he honestly wished he could be making out with a certain someone. it was hot and he was dirty and tired. he glanced around, trying to find snow, and instead made eye contact with bunce.

“basil.” she said, jogging over to him. she was wearing overalls and her forehead was glistening. “surveying our kingdom?”

he snorted and held back a smile. they had made a joke about being king and queen of the eighth year. it was not that funny when you removed it from summer nights giggling about ruling their classmates.

“looking for our ridiculous golden boy.” he murmured, glancing around again. “i wanted to see how dirty he got those idiotic shorts.”

bunce just groaned. “the two of you! obsessed with each other’s shorts! i know what you’re really talking about,” she said, glaring at him jokingly. “it’s about what’s underneath them.”

baz blushed and looked away, just as snow came running up to them.

“pen, pen guess what!” he said like an excited little toddler. it was adorable. baz was nauseated.

“what, simon?” she asked, glancing at baz for a second.

“i found a frog.” he opened his hand and showed it to her. it was tiny, the type that jumped impossibly high. “i want to name it mr. jumpy pants.”

baz wanted to die. why was he attracted to this absolute immature childlike boy?

“i hope you aren’t expecting to keep that… thing in our room.” baz told him. simon looked up and glared at him. oh. right. that was why.

simon had soft blue eyes, curly golden hair and enough freckles to populate the night sky. even when his face was scrunched up and mad, he looked like an angel or a demigod.

the achilles to his patroclus.

“i’ll keep him on my side of the room. besides, he’s a good boy. aren’t you, mr. jumpy pants.” bunce smiled at him and baz assigned a frown to his face. snow looked up again and giggled. “i guess you can say i share a room with a mr. jumpy pants and a mr. grumpy pants.” then he was off, yelling excitedly to garreth.

“find a way to lose that thing before we go back to the school.” baz told bunce menacingly. she just laughed and waved him away.

at lunch, they sat on a picnic blanket and ate sandwiches the school made for them. baz’s was turkey and cheese. he picked at it with disdain.

“you should eat more.” snow told him, biting into his roast beef sandwich. sauce poured down his face. without glancing up from her book, bunce passed him a napkin.

he hadn’t meant to sit with them. but once they stopped for lunch, he couldn’t stop staring at snow’s arse in those tight shorts. he stood there gaping at snow leaning down to get sandwiches, until the only spots open on the picnic blanket were next to snow and his gang.

it wasn’t so bad at first. wellbelove and niall were chatting about classes and dev was staring stormily at the lightly clouded sky. baz suspected that dev had a thing for his best friend. they had both come out to him around the same time, a couple years ago, but hadn’t dated anyone seriously since. he guessed that they had been each other’s gay awakenings and didn’t know how to turn that into a real relationship.

whatever, if they started dating, it would mess up his group dynamic. he’d be a third wheel, instead of the leader.

(also, wasn’t it cool that they were all some sort of queer? dev and baz were gay, niall was bi. well, as they say, gay people attract gay people)

so maybe niall was flirting with wellbelove to make dev jealous, but lunch was still peaceful enough, until snow realized he wasn’t eating.

“don’t pester him,” dev said without sitting up. “you’ll just make it worse.”

baz wanted to smack his cousin. in no world were they about to discuss his eating habits with his crush.

“oh, do you have an eating disorder, baz? my mum is always telling me about them, apparently i should have one.” baz raised his eyebrows. wellbelove laughed prettily. “no, not like that. she’s not encouraging me to have one, though if you knew my mother that wouldn’t be so off base. no, she thinks my age group/attributes mean i’m more predisposed to have one. she’s always making sure i don’t eat too much or too little to prevent it. she’s ridiculous.”

the others nodded and laughed along with her.

wellbelove was… pretty. he understood that. if he hadn’t figured out he was queer at a young age, she would be a perfect comphet crush. but he had and now she annoyed him. it had nothing to do with her, really. it was more about what she stood for. the perfect golden girl for the perfect golden boy.

“no i don’t have an eating disorder.” he said quietly. “i just…” he looked at his friends for help. niall was back to flirting with wellbelove and dev had turned away from them. “i just can’t sometimes.” he finished, looking up at snow.

snow who was still paying attention to him. snow who had his thinking face on.

“would it help if people didn’t watch you eat?” he asked.

baz shrugged. shrugging was a very snow thing to do. shrugs were noncommittal and impartial. baz was normally neither of those things. “i don’t know. can we not talk about it?”

snow nodded, then started talking about his ideas for the eighth year prank.

when they walked back to the dorms (baz lagging slightly behind snow so they didn’t have to insult each other and so he could look at his arse a bit longer), baz reflected on what might be the beginning of something new. he wasn’t friends with snow, their arguments and fights during the week proved this, but maybe he could be in a friend group with snow. after all, he was already friends with bunce and niall was getting close to wellbelove. maybe dev needed to befriend snow.

“guess what?” snow said, stopping right before the door to their dorm room.

baz widened his eyes. did he manage to bring that wretched frog with him? “what?” he asked warily.

snow grinned and god baz was in love with him. “i rocked shorter AND tighter shorts then you. and i nailed it.” baz remembered their last conversation about shorts. he had inspired snow to wear these? hmmm…

“well,” he said calmly. “you may have been successful this week, but i’ll definitely beat you next week.”

snow grinned. “you are so on.”

**penny**

things were getting out of hand. every saturday, one of the boys showed up in tighter and shorter shorts. it was getting to the point where simon was borrowing agatha’s shorts and pinning up his own. it was getting to the point where baz would send her pictures of shorts he had ordered.

now, seven weeks into this game, it had reached new levels. simon showed up to their meeting spot wearing booty shorts. booty shorts that read ‘sexy’ on the arse.

penny gaped at him. “no!” she said, forcing herself to look up.

simon grinned and wiggled his hips around. “yup.” he looked so proud of himself. “baz is going to have an aneurysm.”

penny didn’t doubt that. she didn’t think simon understood why baz would have an aneurysm though.

that summer she had spent hours facetiming baz. they were six hours apart, so they called at her midnight to his 6am. which meant they were always sleepy and unable to hold anything back. they shared a lot of deep thoughts, secrets and silliness. it was really fun.

that was why she knew about his aversion to peanut butter, his fear of the dark and his huge crush on her best friend.

she had honestly always guessed it. baz wasn’t 100% out, but he didn’t work hard to hide his queerness. he tried harder to hide his crush on simon, but she spent way too many minutes of her life (minutes she’d never get back) hearing detailed analysis’s of their every interaction. she also saw the looks baz gave simon went simon wasn’t looking. it was sickening. cute, but sickening.

now she could only assume baz would die when he saw simon.

when agatha joined them, she took one look at simon and giggled. “you really went through with it, huh.” she said.

penny was glad they had broken up. their relationship made everyone positively miserable. agatha because she had to pretend to be something she wasn’t. simon because he had a hard time failing people. baz because he was in love with simon. and her because she had to deal with it all.

plus, agatha and simon had always been great friends. penny couldn’t wait until their relationship was something they laughed about over mimosas.

“they look good though, don’t they?” he asked her, doing a little spin around.

agatha scrunched up her nose. “ask an allosexual, si.”

he grinned and nodded. he was surprisingly good at remembering all of the different terms that the queer community used. penny had known them before agatha came out, she had learned them when she realized she was pan in their 4th year. but si had happily learned and looked up stuff after his breakup and now joked with agatha about cishets.

penny remembered when baz had expressed concerns of simon being homophobic towards him if he revealed his feelings. penny hadn’t had a concrete answer then. before this year they hadn’t really discussed gay stuff. now she could wholeheartedly say he was a good ally.

or, well, maybe more.

but that wasn’t her job to figure out. she wouldn’t not meddle in simon and baz’s relationship.

anyways, it was good simon was good with queerness, because their entire group was queer now. after the second weekend, they had combined her and baz’s friend groups. they hadn’t regretted it since. it was so much easier to have fun, witty conversations when there were six of them and simon didn’t have to strain to see what baz was doing. the boys still kept up their rivalry, but they didn’t let it get in the way of the group. besides, penny hoped that when baz saw his crush in those shorts, he’d work up the nerve to ask him out.

if not, she’d do it for him.

wait, nope, she said no meddling. god she loved meddling.

“heya!” simon called to dev and niall as they joined the group. they seemed to be closer these days. that friday night, baz had whipped out a pack of beers and they all got slightly drunk together. they played children’s games like would you rather and truth or dare. not only did niall and dev do some light making out, agatha told niall she’d never be interested in him. that seemed to be the catalyst of their new relationship.

or what seemed to be a new relationship. if they hadn’t gotten together after that, then there was no helping them.

“how do the shorts look?” simon asked, doing another spin.

dev whistled and niall elbowed him in the stomach. “stop it, i’m your boyfriend.” he said. well, good. then to simon, “they look great snow. baz will be thrilled.”

simon beamed.

baz, walking into the room a couple seconds later, didn’t even seem to notice simon’s shorts. instead he was glowing in everyone’s stares.

baz was wearing… well he was wearing speedos. that was something penny would never unsee. she closed her eyes and they were still there, bright red and tiny. she opened her eyes again. agatha had an eyebrow raised, dev was muttering, “eww baz you’re my cousin. i didn’t want to see that.” niall was holding back laughter. simon was bright red.

“baz…” simon said. “i hate to say it but… you’ve won.”

baz grinned and bowed.

they all politely clapped.

“thank you, thank you,” he said. “i’ll be here all day.”

“mr. grimm-pitch.” a voice said behind him. “headmasters office, now.” baz turned around. their english teacher had her arms folded across her chest. “you’re out of dress code.” she said.

baz grumbled something like, “we have a uniform, i didn’t think we also had a dress code,” and walked towards the headmasters office, head still held high.

“the rest of you, get to work.”

thirty minutes into their gardening projects (it was going very well!) simon pulled penny aside.

“pen… can i talk to you about something?”

she nodded and gestured for her subjects to continue their tasks. he took her to the edge of the woods, still in the sight of their teacher chaperones, but out of earshot.

“i think…” he took a deep breath. “ithinkimattractedtobaz.”

penny nodded. “yeah i assumed.”

simon looked at her shell shocked. “what?!”

she realized that probably wasn’t the best response. “i mean… this whole shorts thing? it was never a plot. you just liked his legs and arse in those shorts. your whole rivalry has been based off of suppressed attraction, in my opinion.”

simon slumped forwards. “that’s the problem. we still have a rivalry. no matter how much i like him, baz will still hate my guts.”

god, did she really have to spell it out for him? she promised herself no meddling but he was making it impossible. “i think him wearing speedos for you contradicts that. just… tell him si. you can’t know until you've tried.” except she knew.

he shrugged then nodded. “okay. i’m going to go back to work. love you.” he kissed her cheek and rushed off.

she loved him back with every morsel of her body.

baz didn’t return until they were done with their dinner and cleaning up. he looked as determined as ever, if not slightly red and more dressed. “i have to tutor some second years.” he told the group, helping agatha put shovels in their wheelbarrows. “not terrible… not great.”

simon nodded, a bit too enthusiastically. “yup. sure. totally agree. cool. bye mate.” he said in rapid procession and then rushed off to help rhys back to the campus.

baz raised an eyebrow. “odd.”

penny couldn’t help but sigh her agreement.

that night when her annoying roommate trixie brought her girlfriend over, she went to agatha’s room. “baz and simon are hopelessly pinning after each other.” she said in lieu of a greeting.

agatha laughed and welcomed her inside. agatha hadn’t had a roommate since philippa got sick and never came back. penny, despite her fervent hatred of trixie, thought it would be lonely. agatha didn’t seem to mind.

“wanna paint your nails while we plot to get them together?” agatha asked.

penny shook her head then nodded. “i promised myself i wouldn’t meddle.” she said. “i would like purple nails though.”

agatha grinned and took out penny’s favorite nail polish color. it reminded her of their school colors: dark purple disgustingly paired with medium green.

when her nails were drying, agatha turned on her favorite music and started to mindlessly dance. agatha was beautiful when she danced. she was normally so well composed that when she let free, she seemed like a completely different person.

sometimes, selfishly, penny wished that this was the only agatha who existed and that only she got to meet her. the outside world didn’t appreciate agatha enough. sometimes it hurt her. penny wished that she could stop it.

“what are you thinking about?” agatha asked, gently taking her hands and spinning her around.

“the world.” penny answered.

agatha grinned and spun as well. she was a whirl of pink and blonde. “i love the world.”

**simon**

penny was normally right.

actually, simon couldn’t remember a time she was wrong.

that was why when baz entered their room, he chose not to annoy him. instead he sat on his bed and stared at him.

baz seemed deeply unsettled by this. “why are you staring at me, snow?”

“can we talk?” he said, ignoring this statement. simon was staring at him because he was realizing how much he appreciated baz’s face. even his crooked nose from the time simon punched him.

he was beautiful.

simon wanted him so badly.

baz narrowed his eyes. “aren’t we talking right now?”

simon ignored this as well. he focused on baz’s beautiful grey eyes. “i don’t hate you. in fact, i hate hating you.” baz just raised an eyebrow. “i want to be your friend. actually…” his face reddened. “i want to be more than your friend.”

he stopped talking. baz should have gotten the idea. now he just needed to respond.

baz did not respond. instead he sat down on his bed and stared at simon. unblinkingly stared at simon. to say it freaked him out was an understatement.

“baz…?” he said, waving a hand in front of his face. “did i break you?” a thought occurred to him. “oh god, did i make you uncomfortable? i’m so sorry i just… i couldn’t hold it in.”

baz’s face finally morphed into real emotions. “what? no.” he rubbed his thumb, pointer and middle fingers against his eyes. “i just…” he left the air silent for far too long. “i just never thought you’d say that.”

simon frowned. baz was extending this ‘letting you down easy’ thing way too long.

“i like you too.” baz said, looking up at him. “i might actually… well i think i’m in love with you.”

oh.

“oh.” he said.

baz nodded. “yeah.”

“can i...” baz nodded. he suddenly looked so soft. his grey eyes were large and glistening. his lips were slightly opened. his hair fell in smooth waves around his face. simon closed the distance between them and kissed him.

simon had kissed agatha before. he had also kissed a nameless girl when he was in kindergarten. simon had never had a kiss like this before.

it was like bursting out of a pool and realizing that you had been hearing muffled noises and that real sounds were so much clearer, pronounced. it was like waking up to crocuses poking out in your yard. it was like something inside of him healed.

baz kissed him like he was the most important thing in the world. baz ran his hands through simon’s hair and sucked on his lips and slipped his tongue into simon’s mouth, like it was his destiny to do so. baz seemed to fit against him, their hearts beating simultaneously.

baz was his everything. he didn’t want to breakaway to breath.

he did. but they placed their foreheads together and breathed in unison.

“sorry for trying to get you expelled in the past.” baz said.

“sorry for being a dick to you.” simon whispered.

“i could say the same.”

they shared a laugh and then they were kissing again.

simon never wanted to stop kissing him.

**baz**

“thank you everyone for showing up. as you may know, every year the eighth years are in charge of creating a garden together. some years have produced masterpieces, like the class of 17’s ‘secret garden’ themed project. others gave us… interesting results. class of 15 tried to make an alice in wonderland themed garden and epically failed. they would have been better off digging a hole and calling it a day,” there were some polite laughs. “my class decided our theme would be a lot simpler. it’s about love. love makes you realize that the world is a beautiful place. it makes you notice the ladybugs on the leaves, the droplets inside the flowers, the worms on the ground. love makes you feel so euphoric that you never want to be alone again. love is something beautiful. i hope we have created something you'll love, in our garden.” applause. “i am proud to introduce, the class of 2022’s garden of love.”

behind him, bunce cut the red ribbon. more applause.

“now, find someone you love, and wander through it.”

everyone applauded again and he left the makeshift podium to follow his own advice.

except, he didn’t just find snow. he found their entire group. wellbelove in a delicate yellow sundress and tall sandals. bunce in a dark blue jumpsuit with little roses on it. dev and niall in button ups and bright colored shorts.

and simon. his simon. wearing grey short shorts and a green shirt.

“you should have dedicated it to me.” he said, kissing baz on the lips. wellbelove made an annoyed sound, but baz ignored it. he deepened the kiss and only pulled away to say,

“it was always going to be dedicated to you,”

“awww,” bunce and niall said.

“get a room!” wellbelove and dev yelled.

baz grinned. they might be losing their current room together, but they’d have a new one soon enough.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading :)) have a nice day and pet a dog! (or cat/bird/fish??)


End file.
